Swedish hackers target Turkish forum

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Swedish hackers have retaliated against their Turkish counterparts following an attack earlier this month on some 5,000 Swedish websites.

On Saturday, a group of disgruntled hackers posted a comment to the Flashback web forum linking to a stolen database containing thousands of user names and passwords from Turkish forum Ayyildiz.

"We have chosen to leak these user details in response to the many recent attacks on Swedish web hosts and websites following the publication of a satirical drawing by Lars Vilks portraying the Muslim prophet Muhammad as a roundabout dog."

The group said that Ayyildiz was a forum used by Turkish hackers to brag about their destructive exploits on the internet.

Having stolen the identities of the Turkish users, Swedish hackers proceeded to post messages on their forum informing them of the successful security breach.

Ayyildiz was temporarily taken out of service as a result of the attack.

The Swedes also broke into the e-mail and MSN accounts of Turkish web users and sent messages using the stolen identities. Among the images in circulation was a pornographic illustration of Muhammad and Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the modern Turkish state.

"This type of 'hacktivism' has been on the increase over the last five or six years," IT security expert Joakim von Braun told The Local.

He added that the outbreak of a hacking war could prove devastating for businesses and government institutions,

"Companies in particular stand to lose a lot of money if their websites are attacked and taken down by hackers," said von Braun.

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